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Peter Lucas: For Democrats, upset of Charlie Baker would lead to paradise

By Peter Lucas

Updated:
06/26/2018 07:19:01 AM EDT

John Walsh, the knowledgeable former chair of the Massachusetts Democrat State Committee, believes that Republican Gov. Charlie Baker can be beaten in November.

He may be right.

Walsh, after all, played a key role in the emergence and election of Deval Patrick -- then a nobody -- when Patrick first ran for governor in 2006.

But Patrick was unique. Not only was he the first African American elected governor, he was hands down the best campaigner in the business, and he could raise money.

Nevertheless, the old saying still goes: You can't beat somebody with nobody.

And right now, the Democrats are not only running a nobody for governor, they are running two of them. And, even as a two-man tag team, they still cannot bring down Baker. Not yet, anyway.

Baker is riding high in the polls. He is one of the most popular governors in the nation. He has raised a ton of money.

The two progressive Democrats are Jay Gonzalez, who was endorsed for governor at the Democrat Party convention, and Bob Massie, a former candidate for lieutenant governor. Massie is challenging Gonzalez for the party nomination in the Sept. 4 Democrat primary.

The winner will face Baker in the November election after Baker defeats Scott Lively of Springfield, a right-wing yahoo, in the GOP primary.

Neither Democrat is exactly a household name, and neither can campaign the way Patrick campaigned. But it is still early and things can change.

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Nobody gave Donald Trump a chance to win the Republican nomination for president, let alone the presidency. The Democrats and the mainstream media (same thing) have still not gotten over it.

Hillary Clinton may not have been much of a candidate, but it is the only thing the progressives had going for them, and now they don't even have that.

But they do have Trump to kick around and that is what they are doing, no matter his accomplishments, which are many, ranging from a booming economy to a potential denuclearization of North Korea.

Walsh, in a column that ran in CommonWealth Magazine last week, believes that Baker "can't afford to alienate Trump voters" because they accounted for his victory over Democrat Martha Coakley four years ago.

That may have been true in 2014, but that ship sailed a long time ago. Baker has already alienated Trump voters. He began his governorship by alienating Trump.

Baker was anti-Trump long before Trump was even elected, stating his criticism of fellow Republican Trump before the New Hampshire presidential primary. He's been at it ever since, often sounding like Democrat U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton.

In the process, Baker has turned off Trump supporters, but he has gained support among Independents and Democrats.

Besides, even if alienated Trump supporters are not going to vote for Baker, they certainly are not going to vote for Gonzalez or Massie. They may stay home, or not vote for governor, but they are not voting for a progressive.

What has happened politically in Massachusetts, and perhaps elsewhere, is that the political ground has shifted.

Baker and the Republican Party he leads is what the Democrat Party was a generation ago. That is why Baker is not uncomfortable with being described as a RINO, or an honorary Democrat.

Baker by personality and policy appeals to Democrats. He governs from the center, which is why Democrat leaders, like House Speaker Robert DeLeo, Senate President Harriette Chandler, and incoming Senate President Karen Spilka all speak highly of him. Even Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is a fan.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party has gone so far to the left that it is unrecognizable to what it was. What was once the party of the working class has become the party of elites at the top and everyone else at the bottom. The middle class has been eliminated.

So, to appeal to the masses, mostly at the bottom, the Democrat Party has morphed into the Paradise Party, a socialist organization that promises paradise to followers, as it promotes class warfare, envy and hate.

The Paradise Party promises to tax the rich to pay for free stuff for everybody else. It promises open borders, free college, free health care, free food, free housing, free child care, and guaranteed jobs for everybody. And if you don't want to work that's OK, because there's always welfare.

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